Choosing to Enjoy the Journey

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Sometimes I find it incredibly easy to walk away from people.
Sometimes not so much.

It is funny I’m writing this now because I just got a call from two said friends I walked from. Their angry I didn’t give them 20 dollars they feel I owe them, accusing me of being a drug addict – I don’t do drugs. Accusing me of being a moochey pooky little bitch yada yada yada.

They seem to think I’m angry at them the sad truth is I really don’t give a shit. I cannot bring myself to care. Today my phone called them probably because I pressed a button and it did so and so now I get to listen to their bullshit. I really could care less about either of them.

However last night a friend I do care about and I had a fight. It wasn’t a huge fight, it was just a fight. Just resentments finally coming out of the woodwork. He said something stupid, something that pissed me off and suddenly I got so fucking angry I didn’t hold back. I told him that I was angry he checked on our friendship. Understandably so he had no idea what I was talking about – understandable because well in the last year I haven’t confronted him, haven’t even tried which on my part wasn’t really all that fair.

I guess though Im just tired. What pissed me off is that when I finally decided to tell him how I feel he accuses me of being drunk and worse pulling out the poor me card. I never do that. Okay that might be a lie, yes of course I do Im human but not in this case and not with this man. Not with this person I admired, helped, worked with supported and repeatedly defended.

Not with this person I loved. With this person I thought I could be open and honest with, I could tell anything to. Nope apparently not. That hurts.

This is a man who indeed is selfish, and has little to no feelings for those around him but at his core is still a good person. He means well but does not always act well on those intentions. People get hurt, and so I wonder where he will be when when he’s chased everyone away.

I am broken, a piece of me – another deeper piece I didn’t know I had in me broke when our friendship splintered. I am not certain it will ever repair, it will heal but the scar will be there.

Until the day we meet again I say fair well, travel safe and take love with you where you go. I know you will do great things.

This offends me on a deep and shame filled scale. I have been always honest with the fact that I have been raped, tortured and in at least one case kidnapped and assaulted. I don’t go into detail often, but the internet seems to be in a shitstorm over the Maryville case. Because hey, all girls like guys who stand up for Rape victim’s right?

The problem is, I’m seeing a ton of anger (and rightfully so) but what frightens me is that I am not seeing anyone say “What can we do for the victims, what do THEY need” No one ever asks that question. People see someone who is broken and hurt and suffering, and they want to help but rather than help often times they cause more harm than good.

In the case of my first rape my counsellor took me to get my makeup done, she figured that if I was just smiling and happy and looked beautiful I would feel beautiful and “get over it”. What she did, unbeknownst to her, is that she set me back fifteen years.

I had you see, all the girlie dreams for the romantic way I would lose my virginity, and laugh if you want, but it was very important to me that it be someone I love. I wanted the fairy tale, and god damn it I fucking deserved the fairy tale. We all do.

Every time I was ever assaulted it was my fault. When I was kidnapped, put into a van and taken to the middle of no where in South Surrey ( a place I still cannot bring myself to go back to) by five large east indian males, one named tiny (I later found out it was because he had a REALLY tiny penis) I was asked by the police why I was out so late at night by myself. When I asked them to call someone to pick me up the dispatcher looked at me and said “well can’t you just walk? it isn’t that far”. I was treated at the hospital, but no one did a rape kit, no one asked me any questions, they just sent me on my merry way.

When I was date raped I had no memory of it for three months. I had been drinking tea the night it happened. At a party full of friends, I remember it was tea because I was very ill.

Every time I have been left to fight my own battles, deal with it myself. When I have seeked out help I have been told to take drugs or in the case of one counsellor “it happened, you may as well accept it and let it go”.

It was not until a friend of mine told me to remember it. At the time I thought he was crazy, and uncaring.

“Go through every second of every event, like a movie, let it play, and if at the end of it your not laying in a puddle of blood and tears, you’ll know you’re okay.” Sure enough, though it took some courage, I learned to deal witht he fact that it happened. I am still not okay, every day for fifteen years I have to remember that I am not a normal person.

For the last eight years, every august I go into hiding and have legit “shadow pain” because my ex boyfriend held me down while my child died inside of me. At the time he was drugging me with a mix of morphine, tylenol 3, whiskey and pcp. I knew about the first three, due to outside issues, I had no idea he was putting PCP into my system – a fact he later laughed about. At an NA meeting several years later he said to me “I still owe you a step nine” – the forgie me step – while laughing about the fact that not only had he killed his son, but he had then had another and given his 2nd son, the name of his 1st son.

Rape is a brutal culture – on both ends of the scale. There is no middle ground. You cannot excuse it, while at the same time defending the victims. You cannot blame the victim, whilst at the same time saying “but hey yeah this is wrong so lets fight for said victim.”

The best way to help ANY victim, is ask the one question not one person in over 28 years has ever had the courage to ask me. “What, do You, Need?”

You’d be surprised. Most victims suffer not just from the shame, but from the fear of never again feeling safe. Even today I have a big scary dog and I keep a minimum distance of 10 feet between myself and any man that comes my way. Yeah I’m fucked up I have issues, but I am aware of them and I had to find them on my own because no one defended me.

I am not trying to nor would I dare, speak for every rape victim out there, but AS A Survivor in training, I ask you, PLEASE before you act, think about what it means to be a victim. To be shamed, humiliated, ostracized and lose yourself of security. Think about what it means to have your entire world ripped apart with no one there to pick up the pieces.

Courage is the most important of all the virtues,
because without courage you can’t practice
any other virtue consistently.
You can practice any virtue erratically,
but nothing consistently without courage.

When I was in my teens and early 20s, I made more than one unwise sexual decision. Maybe because I wanted a guy to like me. Maybe I was afraid of his anger or potential violence. Maybe he was a boyfriend I didn’t want to emotionally withdraw. But in the era before the Internet, there was only the small, localized consequence of having betrayed myself. Nowadays, sexism teaches young women that their value is sexual and that their job is to please men. And then the society equips everyone to catch that moment on camera. And then the young woman is trashed by the very sexist system that conditioned her to do the behavior in the first place.The camera phones and upload capabilities are different now, but the push-you-to-do-it, punish-you-for-doing-it is the same as 20 years ago when I was a young woman. Here is where the Internet wants…

Recently someone I very much love asked me to write them a recommendation, unfortunately as much as I love this person I do not feel that anything I could say about her would really help in a job setting, so I decided to do this instead. I hope you understand darling.

Although I have no knowledge of what the lady known as Gothic Artisan is like as a worker I know this. She is stunningly beautiful inside and out. I know that she lives live with a fear that has convinced her that she is incapable of standing on her own two feet, but I also know and truly believe that she is stronger then she knows.

I know she has an equally beautiful daughter, and that both mother and daughter are fond lovers of music and accept everyone as beautiful and kind individuals. I know that if I ever need someone to talk to she will be there, listening no matter how cutesey or goofy I get, E is most definitely great for my ego, but also because she is just a genuinely kind person.

I know that without a doubt that when she is finally able to look into the mirror and see what the rest of the world sees, she will learn how amazing she is and realize that not only can she stand on her own two feet, she will eventually lead the world into battle.

I cannot recommend you for a job, but I feel that I can tell the world how amazing you are, how truly utterly beautiful and wonderful you are, how grateful I am to know you whether we meet or not. Thank you for being a part of my life, even in this small tiny capacity.

“If you’ve been sexually assaulted that many times, buy a fucking gun”

That is a message I received over Twitter tonight when discussing the numerous times I have been sexually abused. I decided in that moment that if I am to defend my argument I must then explain why I believe what I do and how it all started for me.

I hope that by sharing my stories of vulnerability and the road of darkness I am trying to escape from perhaps some of you will find some semblance of peace. Perhaps you will no that not only are you not alone but you are not at fault for the act of the preditors that attempt to break you. This is the story of the first time I was sexually abused.

It happened in Calgary Alberta Canada.

It is so weird but all these years and I still cannot remember how old I was, I do remember that everything about me began to change in grade four.

I used to be a creative thinker, I used to be able to drift away inside my mind where nothing could hurt me, this incident changed everything.

We were at my mom’s friend’s house. She had another friend there named R, from out of town. It was a fun night, my brother and I were playing games and the adults were drinking wine and laughing, everyone was having a good time.

I remember that at some point I was sitting on his lap while he played guitar and sang my brother and I songs….at the time it seemed all so innocent.

I had fallen asleep and I heard K and R arguing, K was going to walk mom home and R was going to watch us kids, he wanted to move me into the bedroom but she was saying something about having to move me back later.

I remember going back to sleep and cuddling into K’s blankets, they were so warm and soft.

I remember R coming into the bedroom and touching me between my legs. I woke up instantly, and I felt it again, his fingers did not go inside of me, but I felt them as if I were touching myself…I told him to stop.

When he realized I was awake he slowly eased away from the bed.

I stayed there, too scared to move, when K came home she walked me into the living room and put me back to sleep on the couch, he stood there leaning against the bathroom in the hallway, smirking he knew I wouldn’t say anything.

I waited, I listened. They were having sex.

It was three am when I walked myself the half block home and knocked on the door. My mother wasn’t pleased that I had left and I did not tell her why. Instead I crawled into bed and tried to sleep, I slept well into the next day.

I was thirteen before I said anything. I was 13 before I told my mom during an episode of Oprah, in which she was talking about children’s behaviors when they had been abused.